


And Finished knowing--then--

by Faisalliot



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: !!!, Angst, F/M, Hurt Harry, Master of Death Harry Potter, Sick Harry Potter, Spooky, Spooky Harry, WOW this is so melodramatic, Whump, if you're looking for some death ruminations, jesus christ - Freeform, this is kinda sad, this is the place to BE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:41:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25986037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faisalliot/pseuds/Faisalliot
Summary: Harry died once, and sometimes he wonders if he ever really woke up.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter/Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Comments: 9
Kudos: 149





	And Finished knowing--then--

**Author's Note:**

> :(

What would you do if you knew that you were going to die?

Who would you talk to? Where would you go? Who would be with you, if anyone at all? How would you act? Would you tell anyone? Would you try to stop it? How many things would stop mattering? And how many things would suddenly matter far too much?

Questions like these are so rarely rooted in reality: one very well might expect to wring their brand of melodrama out of a moody teenager, or overhear them in a late night conversation riddled with hypotheticals. You would never expect to have to wake up pondering them, and not have them be some distant echo of a dream you’ve already forgotten. 

But Death is an inevitability. It has _always_ been an inevitability, like the end of a story or the candle wick, and it always would be. Harry had known for months that his days were numbered. He’d acknowledged and accepted that, and had been foolish enough to hope that that would be the end of it. That it would just be the _end._ No such luck, because…

Well. 

What would you do if you knew that you were going to die?

And what would you do if you did, if you felt your body go cold, your heart stop beating, stared into that unfathomable blackness...and then woke up?

Would you be alive, then?

Or something else?

* * *

It had really hit him a couple weeks into his seventh year at Hogwarts. 

That something was wrong.

It hadn’t started with the _looks._ The peering peripheral eyes, the hand-cupped lips, and whispered, hissing words. That _something had happened―_ it wasn’t _natural―_ something was so very _strange_ about him now. Not even the murmurs about It. The It that no one could explain. The It that had made the apparent dead rise up and walk, blurry, confused, but undoubtedly _alive._

It hadn’t started with the Incidents, either. Professor McGonagall screaming when he asked her a question, hand clutched to her chest as she gasped, “I couldn’t―my goodness, Potter, you walk _very_ quietly!”. It wasn’t when Ron and Hermione kept turning to check if he was still there, as if his presence wasn’t tangible, as if he were a ghost every time they turned their back. It wasn’t his lack of footsteps in the snow, the strange glow of his eyes in the darkness that Neville swore he saw, or the shiver everyone did when he touched him. 

It wasn’t how the ghosts ran from him that clued him in. Not Nearly Headless Nick’s face contorting before darting into the darkness, the shiver of the Bloody Baron, or the way Peeves had stared at him, long and hard, unsmiling, before slowly backing off.

It wasn’t even the way he floated in the night, eyes open and unseeing, the blackness curling beneath him and trying to swallow him down. 

No.

It was when he Fell. 

Capital F warranted.

* * *

Harry had died once, and sometimes he wondered if he had ever actually come back.

He thought of the blackness he had seen, that yawning, gaping void. He thought of how it nipped at his fingertips now, and the bleached skull smile he saw in his peripherals. He thought of the terror on the faces of the Ghosts, the whisper of _master―master―master_ and thought about how he had not grown a bit since he had died.

He thought of how it had felt to die, and heaved for breath, the whooshing in his ears crescendoing just in time for it to cease entirely. He could remember that pressure, the pressure that was deeper than a stab, that was deeper than anything that existed, that was deeper than death. The pressure that had reached towards him, reached up and _into_ him, and plucked away what had made Harry _him._ He thought of the abrupt blackness, that brief, small scatter-shock of bodywide pain, and thought of how it had been swept away by that awful, endless chill.

Harry had been dead.

And he thought of how blindingly bright the light had been when it came back, how the air in his lungs had rattled when he inhaled, and how _painful_ it was, that his heart thudded in his chest and his too-short hair tickled the back of his neck. He was all too aware of the pulse thrumming in his wrists, and the way his chest raised as he sucked in a heavy, steadying breath, and that sensation had not left him.

Harry was not dead anymore.

The dead did not breathe.

But Harry thought that he wasn’t alive either.

The living did not see Death, and they did not roost within it either.

Harry had died once, and sometimes he worried if he had ever actually come back.

* * *

Going down, down, down into the dungeons, into the womb of the Earth herself, Harry had fallen once. He’d stopped short just beneath the proverbial dirt, and Ron had bumped into him. 

“Oi, don’t stop in the middle of the steps,” He’d grouched, and physically picked Harry up and moved him to the side. “If you’re gonna harass me into taking potions with you again, at least don’t try to trip me up, mate. Bloody hell. C’mon now, don’t want to be late.” And he’d taken Harry by the cold hand and tugged. 

“This is a grave.” Harry said slowly, as if in a haze, and did not move. 

Ron’s hand went rigid in his. “Harry, don’t―Merlin’s tits, mate, don’t just _say_ shit like that. Too fresh.”

Harry took a step down. 

And another.

And another.

His knees got heavier with every inch he went down, his breath got shallower, and the more a...the more the strangest _need_ grew inside of him. 

A need to….

...lay _down…_

_…_

….and sleep.

Before he knew it, he had been toppling forward, Ron was spluttering a word that Mrs. Weasley would scourgify his mouth for, people were screaming, and he was just barely conjuring a mattress before he hit the ground. In the corner of his eyes, he had seen a ghost staring at him. 

He came to minutes later, back at the top of the steps with McGonagall, Snape, Ron, and Pomfrey all hovering over him. 

That boded _great._

He couldn’t remember what happened. 

As if catching his confusion, McGonagall said primly, “You passed out, Mr. Potter. We were just about to take you to the hospital wing.”

He nearly groaned, but abandoned it after a moment. Too much effort. And...McGonagall looked so very pale. And he’d barely picked up on it...but there had been a shake to her voice. 

“Well, that sucks.” He gusted out after a moment, trying hard to focus.

He peered over at Snape, who seemed more ashen than usual. Quiet, too. No one said anything. 

“That was better than it could’ve been though—I could’ve conked open my head, but hey, I conjured this thing pretty fast, so I didn’t. Pr’fessor Snape, you must be so disappointed.” Oop, that might’ve been a touch too far. McGonagall cracked a smile, though.

“Aren’t you clever.” Came Snape’s low, crooning drawl from above Harry, not bothering to reprimand him for the lip which made him _really_ worry that something was up, but then Snape brandished a yellow potion at him. 

Harry stared at it for a long moment, processing the viscosity and color. “I’d ask if you’re making me drink piss, but honestly, that would probably taste better than whatever _that_ is.”

“Quite.” Was the dry response he got. Snape’s lip curled a bit in what Harry would call amusement if he was stupider, and then he held the potion to his mouth. “Drink this.”

Harry did what he was told, figuring Snape wouldn’t pull something in front of McGonagall or Poppy―Ron, he wasn’t too sure about―and made a face as the taste tried to nerf him in one go just as clarity went the full mile and just about bashed his skull in with the authority of a falling anvil. “Ah, would you look at that? I can focus now, neat.” He rasped, blinking hard.

“That’s what Invigoration Draughts tend to do, Potter.”

Ignoring this, Harry cocked his head up a bit to look at Ron, who was hovering nervously nearby and still had yet to speak, which was worrisome, and asked, “So, how many people saw my impromptu speed run into the dungeons?”

Ron gave him a nervous, wry smile. “A lot, mate.”

Harry let his head fall back with a fwump. “Motherfucker.”

“Language, Potter.”

That strange tingling in his throat started up again, and it got harder to breathe. Harry held his forearm over his throbbing eyes and sorta slurred as he spoke, 

“My unconscious body just surfed down five flights of stairs in front of a bunch of people.” He pointed his pinky at McGonagall. “I’m allowed to say fuck, Mickey G.”

And then he passed out again.

The following couple hours or so were quite confusing. He awoke what felt like a moment later to McGonagall shaking him insistently, and the strangest sensation of floating. “Potter, please stay awake.” 

He pointed at her and said, with a strange lopsided grin, “See, I could do that, but consider—“

And back down he went. He woke up again, and there was Poppy, looking down at him with a supremely exasperated look about her. His brain promptly decided hey, fuck that noise, and poof, out again. And then someone was yelling but he couldn’t be arsed to figure out who it was, so he slept. “His magic—body can’t—too much—needs rest—“ and WOW, that last part sounded lovely, because he was tired-tired.

Hours later, he was back on again, and apparently in the middle of a conversation with Ron that he couldn’t remember starting, which was _very_ disorienting. Ron, might he add, looked very annoyed with him. 

“Seriously, mate. Only you could be so bloody powerful that your body can’t keep up. It’s all proper mental, it is. What is _wrong_ with you?”

“You just said it.” He quipped dryly, trying to remember when the hell he’d first spoken. 

Ron’s angry face persisted for the better part of two more seconds before it broke into pieces and he just started laughing. “Shut up, Harry.” and then― 

* * *

Harry was _screaming._

Ron was dithering, body shifting towards Pomfrey’s office, when she came tearing out. 

Her wand was flying across Harry’s chest, diagnostics and graphs that didn’t make a lick of sense to him flashing over Harry’s body, and he was still _screaming._ It wasn’t a good scream, either―it was _pain._ Pure, unadulterated, personification of _pain,_ undoubtable terror, every choked cry laden with the near tangible thought of _"Make it stop"_ and then they were garbling and pitiful.

 _“Stop―stop―stop―”_ Harry said repeatedly, quickly, voice breathy and small. “No, _no―”_

Hermione made a strange, cut off noise next to him, and whether it was to comfort her or himself, he didn’t know, but Ron reached down and seized her hand then. 

Harry’s body jerked. 

He opened his mouth, but not a sound came out. There was none left. His jaw violently quivered as if there was a drill to the back of his skull. His eyes could see nothing; they lost all sight of what is and what could have been. His mouth was still open, pulling down into a contortion of a frown, an eternal scream, and Ron watched in numbstruck, indescribable horror as saliva dripped from behind his teeth and onto the sheets. And the _sounds,_ that awful, grating _rattle,_ the _gurgling,_ and his hand was white knuckled in the sheet and maybe Pomfrey was yelling, maybe she wasn’t,

And― 

Just as quick as he had started.

Harry stopped.

He fell limp and his mouth fell shut like a ventriloquy doll thrown to the side, and did not move again. His own ragged breathing was suddenly very loud in the room, and he could tell he was squeezing Hermione’s hand too hard, and Harry wasn’t―he wasn’t _moving._ Was barely _breathing._ Just like he had earlier, gone so deathly still in the dungeon corridor. He’d taken him by the shoulders, shaking him, _screaming_ at him as the students came crowding around and closing in, “ _Weasley, back off, I know CPR―” “Goddammit, Harry,_ **_no―!”_ ** and that gasp, that awful, awful _gasp_ before Snape was batting him out of the way and McGonagall was muttering things that didn’t make sense in his ears―

His face was wet when he (ran out of) left the room, and he pretended he didn’t know it.

* * *

It wouldn't stop. It was threaded through his body, in the marrow of his bones and woven into his veins. Every heartbeat was a pulse of pain, reminding him that he was still alive. And as long as he was alive, he was hurting. Every gush of blood was hot, _too_ hot, every inch of skin was too much and too _little,_ every single blink was a shard of glass shoving deeper and deeper inside of him, into an indiscriminate, tiny inch of him, and it wouldn’t _stop._

He wished he could care more. 

It was gentler, _easier_ to not care, and it made everything softer, a small mercy from a God who didn’t care, didn’t exist, but it reminded him that he was shattering at the sheerly-sealed seams. And wasn't that what the goal was? Wasn't that why it all happened? He could cry all he liked, he could scream all he liked, but he wouldn't win, because nobody cared. Nobody ever _would_ care, not even him, and he thought he knew somewhere inside that it was his own fault.

He had felt real, had _been_ real for a moment. He couldn’t recall when. Was it Ron’s voice? Hermione’s touch? McGonagall’s gentle, steadying gaze? Was it the smell of Luna’s perfume, or the feel of Neville’s blanket beneath his fingers? He didn’t know, but he knew that it _was_ real, that they had _made_ him real, if only for a moment, because there was no way he could’ve come up with such good things. 

He didn’t think he could imagine anything that didn’t hurt him anymore, so Ron, Hermione, McGonagall, Luna, and Neville were real, because they were good and kind and Harry didn’t know what that meant anymore. And if they were real, and they acknowledged him, then he was real too.

And the thought made it all stop.

* * *

―Harry blinked again, the room was darker, and he felt significantly worse than he had before. He felt….as if something had happened, something important, and he’d slept through it. And his head was in Hermione’s lap. Her hand was brushing through his hair, and he wanted to go back to sleep. 

Her hand paused it’s ministrations, and she said after a moment. “Would you look at that? You’re alive down there.”

Harry just made a low, short moaning noise and pressed his head into her palm. 

“Yeah, yeah...your fever’s gone down. That’s good. Got a little scary there for a while.” 

Oh, this was news to him. 

“Yeah?”

“Mhm. Pomfrey looked ready to punt you to St. Mungos, you know. You were writhing for a while, making these, these _awful―”_ She stopped quickly, unclenching her fingers from his hair, and didn’t speak again for a long time. Just as he was about to give up on waiting and go back to sleep because he really _was_ still tired, honest, she said, “You don’t call out for anyone.”

It seemed she had more to say, but nothing followed her words, so Harry hummed lowly to prod her along, curling his fingers into the hem of her tunic shirt. The fabric was soft, smooth, and so pleasantly cool beneath his fingers—Harry couldn’t help it, and it just felt so nice. It was alright.

“...When you sleep, I mean.” Hermione gusted out suddenly. Harry wondered why she had deigned this important enough to say. “When you’re...sick, or hurting, or just...having a nightmare.” It sounded a bit like she was having trouble speaking, and Harry realized very suddenly that this was the tone she had when she was trying not to cry. He tried to summon enough strength to get up and alert enough to comfort her because holy _shit_ Hermione did _not_ cry easy, but he couldn’t quite dredge it up. “Ron had to leave the room―he couldn’t handle it. Watching you like that. He was crying. And I―I don’t know why it _bothered_ me so much, that you don’t call for anyone, because Ron doesn’t either, but it just―”

Harry frowned, and curled his knuckles just above Hermione’s left side, ceasing his ministrations on her shirt. That last part wasn’t true, he was sure of it. “Y’s, he does.”

“What?”

“Ron...calls out for _you.”_

Hermione didn’t say anything for a very, very long time, and her hand stopped moving through his hair. 

“Oh...of course.”

The words weren’t meant to entertain him or brush him off. They were just a slow, dawning comprehension, an “ah, now why didn’t I think of that before?” and before he could bother to see where she’d go with it, Harry fell asleep, his head sinking heavily into Hermione’s legs.

* * *

Hermione wasn’t sure what she was feeling anymore, but she knew none of it was good. It was akin to a knot swollen up in her chest, laden with a ragged sort of pain. Regret, sorrow, anger, despair, remorse...it was all there. After a moment of indecision, she returned her fingers to Harry’s hair, and thought of naught but the softness of it, how prettily it gleamed in the moonlight, and relished the smoothness between her fingers. It baffled her, how unfairly soft his hair was. Like feathers. She did not worry. Tried not to think. 

“He’s right, though.” Ron murmured a while later, startling her.  
“What?”

“I... _do_ call out for you.” He admitted sheepishly, and she could see his ears going red even in the pale moonlight. 

She looked over him for a while, and felt her lips pull up in a small, genuine smile at that, but it didn’t last long as Harry curled just a smidge more into himself. 

“I’m hitting him for telling you that, though. When he’s better.” Ron joked a moment later as if to preserve the smile, but it didn’t land. 

Because when he was _better_ seemed like more and more of an arbitrary concept by the day. They had expected―had _hoped_ for that haunted look about Harry to fade with time, but it seemed that it only worsened as the clock marched on. 

For the millionth time, Hermione wondered what the _hell_ had happened in the forest. 

Harry had told her and Ron, of course. He’d laid between them in the dead of night, just hours after the battle, and he’d told him that he had died. And it had almost destroyed her then, that Harry had died. He hadn’t gone out with a bang, nor with a whimper, she’d realized suddenly. Harry Potter had died with nary a sound, and that was it. A quiet, devastating, utterly unfair death for the boy, just a _boy,_ who had saved their world. But Harry was alive, he was _alive,_ and she was so very grateful because she loved this boy and was glad he was here, just as much as she was _horrified._

Because she knew.

Harry was back, and he was stuck here in a world that he barely knew anymore, not since they’d been running from it for so long, and she knew, she just _knew_ that this same world would still bully him into helping it more. He was _still_ going to be fighting even though the war was done, because giving up _everything_ just wouldn’t be enough for them. It didn’t matter how crippled he was, what he wanted, or what he needed. He’d wring himself through every inch of it, even when there was nothing left of himself to burn, not because he wanted to, but because he believed that he had to. Because no one would let him _stop._

He didn’t deserve that—that wasn’t fair.

~~She had wondered, then, if it would’ve been easier for him to have stayed dead.~~

And she had been right. 

Trial after trial, speech after speech, funeral after funeral, and she had hoped against hope, prayed against prayer that every single one would be the _last_ one, but it never was. She’d watched, feeling very, very sick as he’d come back to the Burrow, look over the tired, pale faces of the Weasley’s, linger on Fred’s, and slump into his chair, lowering his face into his hands and closing his eyes all in one fluid motion.

It wasn’t fair. Wasn’t then, wasn’t fair _now._

Harry was still hurting.

And she didn’t know if _when_ he would “be better” even existed anymore.

* * *

Harry looked at Ron, and then at Hermione. They did not look at him as they walked, but they squeezed his hands gently. 

And if he closed his eyes, perhaps he could pretend they held on because they cared, because they _loved_ him, but―he shook himself then. _Shut it down,_ he told himself. _Put it in the vault with the rest of your wantings and don't look at it again, you weird, weird creature._

They stopped before the forest, and they turned to look at him. 

“Harry.” Ron said, voice firm and face strangely soft. “We should...talk. Not because you did something wrong, but because, well...Hermione and I think _we’re_ doing something wrong. No one is here except for us. Please, just...let’s sit. And talk. We miss you.”

And then they _were_ sitting.

And they _were_ talking.

Harry looked to the left, and saw the Stone glittering in the dirt just next to his palm. He could feel the wand beneath his palm, creeping ever closer, trying so _hard_ to reach him. The cloak in his pocket seemed awfully heavy. 

_“I am painless. I am numbing. I am the ultimate rest, the ultimate relief, and the ultimate peace. I am Death, Harry Potter.”_ he heard in his corners of his ears. _“And you are not alive, and you are not dead. You, my dear boy, have conquered me.”_

Harry ran his fingers along the soil, and did not think of how nice it would be to sleep within it. 

He looked at Ron. He looked at Hermione.

And he said.

“I died once, and sometimes I wonder if I ever actually came back.”

* * *

_I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,_

_And Mourners to and fro_

_Kept treading – treading – till it seemed_

_That Sense was breaking through –_

_And when they all were seated,_

_A Service, like a Drum –_

_Kept beating – beating – till I thought_

_My mind was going numb –_

_And then I heard them lift a Box_

_And creak across my Soul_

_With those same Boots of Lead, again,_

_Then Space – began to toll,_

_As all the Heavens were a Bell,_

_And Being, but an Ear,_

_And I, and Silence, some strange Race,_

_Wrecked, solitary, here –_

_And then a Plank in Reason, broke,_

_And I dropped down, and down –_

_And hit a World, at every plunge,_

**_And Finished knowing – then –_ **

-Emily Dickinson, "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, (340)"

* * *

Harry Potter had died once, and he hadn’t come back. But he had two people to share his waking grave with, and that was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> i was in a Mood sorry


End file.
